by Laura Levine
“You won’t believe what happened!” he huffed, plopping down onto the deck chair next to mine. “Somebody stole my ice picks.”
“Omigosh. How? Did they break into your cabin?”
I certainly hoped there wasn’t a burglar running loose. The last thing I needed was someone barging into my cabin and discovering Prozac.
“Nobody broke into my cabin,” Anton assured me. “Or my supply case, either. The lock hadn’t been broken. My guess is that someone stole them yesterday after the demonstration when I was talking to you.”
I remembered how he’d left his table unattended to ply me with his dubious charms.
“I put my tools away in a hurry and didn’t bother to count them, but this morning I discovered two of them were missing.”
He looked around, scowling.
“Damn passengers. They steal everything that isn’t bolted down. Towels. Salt shakers. And now my ice picks. What a bunch of lowlifes.”
This from a guy whose T-shirt said, Love Instructor. First Lesson Free.
“Mind if I have a sip?” he asked, eyeing my Bloody Mary.
Without waiting for a reply, he whipped it from my hand and polished it off in three gulps.
“Thanks,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I needed that.”
So did I, buster. Now how about buying me another?
“So, Jaine, what did you think of my Jell-O rose?”
That lecherous look was creeping back in his eyes.
“Very nice, Anton. But you really shouldn’t have done it.”
“Just trying to win you over, babe,” he winked.
“I already told you, Anton. I’m not interested.”
“And I already told you, doll. I like a challenge.”
Okay, time to skedaddle.
“Gotta go,” I said, hauling myself up from my chair.
“Aw, c’mon, Jaine. What’s it going to take to get you in the sack?”
“General anesthesia.”
And with that, I scooted off to freedom.
Anton’s repulsive offer was almost enough to make me lose my appetite. Almost, but not quite. Somehow my taste buds managed to rally and were now begging to be fed. So I headed off to the buffet for a much-needed bite to eat.
I was navigating one of the ship’s many serpentine corridors when I saw Paige approaching from the opposite direction. The normally perky, peppy social director was looking neither perky nor peppy at the moment. Au contraire. Her mouth was set in a grim line as she marched along, making notes on her clipboard.
She couldn’t possibly have heard about what happened with David and Nancy so soon, could she?
Nevertheless, perhaps it was best I stay off her radarscope.
I decided to duck into a nearby jewelry shop and pretend I was interested in one of their overpriced baubles, but it was too late. Paige had already spotted me.
“Jaine!” she called out. “We need to talk.”
I mustn’t panic. Just because she looked like she wanted to throttle someone didn’t necessarily mean that someone was me. There were all sorts of things she could be steamed about. Maybe she ran out of Bingo cards. Or Ping-Pong balls. Or perky pills. Think positive, I told myself, as she tapped her pencil in an angry staccato on her clipboard. She probably had no idea of the marital disaster that had erupted in my classroom.
“I heard all about what happened in your class today,” she snapped.
So much for positive thinking.
“That little tiff between Mr. and Mrs. Shaw?” I said, putting on my most innocent face. “Really, Paige, it sounds a lot worse than it was. Why, I bet by now they’ve already kissed and made up.”
“Mr. Shaw has just moved into a separate cabin.”
By now, icicles were forming in the atmosphere above us.
“Oh, dear. Is there anything I can do?”
“Short of finding them a divorce attorney, I don’t think so. The Shaws, along with fifteen family members, are disembarking the ship tomorrow in Puerto Vallarta.”
Oh, crud.
“You realize of course, that’s seventeen passengers we’ll never see again.”
“I bet for a company as big as Holiday Cruise Lines, seventeen people is just a drop in the bucket.”
“Here at Holiday,” she said, trotting out a gag from the employees’ handbook, “every passenger is our Number One concern.
“Needless to say,” she added, “the wedding renewal ceremony has been canceled. And since we were comping the Shaws on their wedding cake, we think it’s only fair that you pay for half. Don’t you agree?”
Of course not! I wanted to shriek. Holiday Cruise Lines was a multi-million-dollar operation; I was a struggling freelance writer with enough unpaid bills to start a bonfire.
But wimp that I am, I said yes of course, it was only fair.
Besides, how much could half a cake cost, anyway?
(Two hundred bucks, as I was to learn, to my horror, when I got my bill at the end of the cruise.)
“Before I let you go, Jaine, I just want to say that never in all my years as a cruise director has something like this happened.”
And with that she let out a series of indignant sneezes.
“Gosh, I hope you’re not catching a cold,” I said, eager to change the subject.
“Of course not. I never catch colds. It feels like my allergies are acting up.”
She sneezed again. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear there was a cat on board ship.”
“Ha ha!” I said, feigning hilarity. “What a crazy idea. Well, must run and do some prep work for my next class. Ciao for now!”
With a jaunty wave, I dashed off, praying she hadn’t noticed the generous coating of cat hairs clinging to my slacks.
Down in the Dungeon Deck, I flung myself on my pillowless cot, wishing I could ditch this cruise from hell and disembark with the Shaws in Puerto Vallarta.
But as you know, we Austens are made of sterner stuff. No way would I walk out on my contract. That’s because I had integrity, because I had principles, and most important, because I couldn’t afford the airfare back home.
Lying there in a miserable lump, I leafed through the ship’s notices that had accumulated in the little plastic docket outside my door.
There among the flyers from the ship’s boutiques was a handwritten note from Emily, asking me to please join her and her “little family” in her suite at 6 P.M. for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres.
At least I was still in Emily’s good graces.
I checked my watch. Five more hours until the hors d’oeuvres kicked in.
In the meanwhile, it was time to make that proverbial leap from the frying pan into the fire. Yep, ever the glutton for punishment, I picked up a pencil and returned to my chores in the literary gulag known as Do Not Distub.
Chapter 9
Emily’s cocktail party was in full swing—and, much to my delight, Robbie had whisked me aside the minute I came in the door, leading me out onto the balcony.
It was raw and damp in the dusky night air. Gulls were circling above and storm clouds were gathering. But I didn’t care. I was alone with Robbie and that’s all that mattered.
“Let me give you my jacket,” he said, putting his blazer over my shoulder.
I reveled in the warmth from his body.
“I wanted to get you alone, Jaine, because I have something to tell you.”
He looked at me with what I could swear was a reasonable facsimile of love in his eyes.
“Ever since I first saw you, I’ve really been attracted to you.”
“Oh, me too!” I blurted out before I could stop myself.
And then he took me in his arms. This was it. The big kahuna. The moment I’d been fantasizing about when I should have been editing Samoa’s manuscript.
But just as he was about to kiss me, a bird came swooping down between us. A strange, ugly black bird with long furry feathers.
I cried out in horror as it sprea
d its enormous wings. I tried to back away, but its feathers were in my nose smothering me.
“Help!” I screamed. “Somebody help me!”
Where the heck was Robbie? And why wasn’t he helping me?
The bird glared at me through bulging eyes and then opened its enormous beak. Omigod. It was going to peck me to death. I was going to be human birdkill!
But then the bird did the strangest thing: it meowed.
It was then that I woke up and realized I wasn’t at Emily’s cocktail party but back in my own cabin, Prozac’s tail draped over my nose.
I’d fallen asleep, Samoa’s manuscript pages scattered around me on the bed. It may have stunk as a novel, but it was one heckuva sedative.
I checked my watch. Six o’clock! I was late for the cocktail party.
With no time to shower, I threw on some slacks and a silk blouse and tore over to Emily’s suite.
Batting down a cowlick that had cropped up during my nap, I knocked at her door. Nesbitt answered it, all dolled up in an Aunt Bea floral dress and prison-warden support hose.
“You’re late,” she muttered, peering at me through her horn-rimmed glasses.
So nice to see you, too.
She led me inside and I gazed in awe at the plush surroundings. Cushy carpeting, thick damask drapes, plasma TV, and not one but two sofas flanking a coffee table as big as my bed. What a palace compared to my jail cell.
Emily was seated on one of the sofas next to Graham, still Mr. Debonair in his nautical blazer and snow-white shirt. By now I was not surprised to see the suave Brit as part of Emily’s “little family.”
Seated across from them on the opposite sofa were Kyle and Maggie—Kyle glaring daggers at the happy couple, while Maggie scarfed down hors d’oeuvres, eyes darting nervously to Kyle’s ever-present martini glass.
Ms. Nesbitt plopped down next to them and joined Kyle in his glare-a-thon.
“Jaine!” Emily beamed. “So happy you could make it.”
The normally makeup-free Emily was wearing lipstick. And mascara, too. And it looked like she’d been to the ship’s beauty salon; her gray curls had been sprayed to concrete perfection.
“Sit here,” she said, patting an armchair next to her.
“What can I get you to drink, Jaine?” Robbie asked.
I turned and noticed him for the first time, looking quite yummy in a blazer and chinos. He was standing in front of a black onyx bar, complete with silver ice bucket and martini shaker. Good heavens. I’d died and gone to Art Deco heaven.
“A white wine, please.”
“Coming right up.”
“Care for an hors d’oeuvre?” Maggie held out a plate of dainty toast rounds topped with what I was certain was caviar.
“It’s beluga,” she added.
Kyle rolled his eyes.
“As if she’d know the difference.”
Okay, so he didn’t really say that. But I could tell that’s what he was thinking.
“And these are gravlax,” Maggie said, pointing to some pink fishy stuff.
Let’s see. I had a choice between black fishy stuff and pink fishy stuff. Hadn’t these people ever heard of Velveeta on a Ritz? Stifling a sigh, I went for the black stuff.
Yuck. It was every bit as fishy and slimy as I’d imagined. At last I’d discovered something worse than tofu.
“Delicious,” I said, faking a smile.
I scanned the room for something vaguely edible and spotted a bowl of fruit next to me on an end table. My eyes lit on a shiny red apple. Normally, fruit is not my go-to snack, but it quickly zooms to the top of my list when my other choices are of the slimy fish variety. That apple looked darn good. So as Emily started chattering about an action-packed shuffleboard game she and Graham had played that afternoon, I reached over and grabbed the apple.
Just as I was about to bite down on it, Nesbitt shrieked, “What do you think you’re doing?”
All eyes swiveled to me and the apple in my mouth.
“You mustn’t eat that, dear!” Emily cried.
“The fruit’s fake,” Nesbitt said.
I quickly tossed it back in the bowl.
“I bought it two years ago on a cruise down the Mediterranean.” Emily smiled at the memory. “Such a wonderful cruise, wasn’t it, Leona?”
“Yes,” Nesbitt said. “That cruise was nice. It was just the two of us, if I recall,” she added, shooting Graham a particularly filthy look.
Oh, Lord. I’d almost chomped down on a precious memento! How mortifying. Hadn’t Lucy done something just like this at Ricky’s boss’s house? The next thing I knew I’d be blacking out my teeth and stomping grapes with my bare feet.
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
“Don’t feel bad,” Robbie said, handing me my wine. “I once spent twenty minutes trying to peel the banana.”
How sweet that he was trying to make me feel better. Not so with the charming Ms. Nesbitt.
“I hope you didn’t leave any bite marks,” she said, examining the apple.
I cringed in shame, wishing I were back down with the peasants in the Dungeon Deck.
But my humiliation was quickly overshadowed by the bombshell that was about to explode.
“Attention, everybody,” Emily said, tapping a knife against her wineglass. “Graham and I have an announcement to make.”
Kyle took a deep gulp of his martini, and Ms. Nesbitt blinked behind her horn-rimmed glasses.
“Why don’t you tell them, Gray?” Emily smiled coquettishly at Graham.
“I’d be delighted to, darling,” he said, flashing her a smile almost as white as his shirt.
“My beloved Emily and I,” he announced, “are going be married.”
Apart from a strangled gasp from Ms. Nesbitt and the glug-glug of gin sluicing down Kyle’s throat, the silence was deafening.
“Isn’t anyone going to say anything?” Emily looked around at her family.
Maggie, who had been sitting with an hors d’oeuvre frozen in her hand, came to life first.
“Congratulations!” she managed to say, with a stunned smile.
“Yes, congratulations,” Robbie echoed. He, too, looked like he’d just been bopped with a baseball bat.
Kyle and Nesbitt, unable or unwilling to comment, remained etched in granite.
“Show them your cuff links, Gray.”
Graham shot the French cuffs on his shirt, displaying a set of dazzling diamond-studded cuff links.
“An engagement present from your aunt,” he said, with a smug smile.
“They were so lovely,” Emily said, “I couldn’t resist.
“Look at the time!” she said, jumping up. “If you’ll all excuse me, I’ll just go to the powder room, and then we’ll head off to dinner!”
She trotted off to her bathroom, blissfully unaware of the hostility crackling around her.
The minute she was gone, Kyle slammed down his martini glass and hissed at Graham, “I knew you were trouble from the get-go, mister. But you won’t get away with it. You hear me? You won’t get away with it.”
I, for one, would not want to be staring into his face, now purple with rage. But Graham did not seem the least bit perturbed.
“Try and stop me,” he said airily.
“Believe me, I will. No matter what it takes.”
“Lots of luck. But I doubt anything will stop Emily from marrying me,” Graham said, buffing his new cuff links on the arm of his blazer. “She’s in love, don’t you know? Oh, and by the way, once we tie the knot, Kyle, you won’t ever get your hands on her money again. So you’d better kiss your Town & Country lifestyle good-bye.
“And you, Ms. Frostbite,” he said, nodding to Ms. Nesbitt, “you’d better start checking the want ads. I have a feeling Emily won’t be needing your services anymore.”
“That’s what you think, you gold-digging bastard,” Nesbitt hissed. The woman was thisclose to garroting him with her support hose.
But all further threats and counter
threats were stifled as Emily came out of the bathroom.
“Is everybody ready?” she asked.
For dinner? Not so much.
For thermonuclear war? You betcha.
How awkward was dinner? Let’s just say it made Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf look like an episode of The Waltons. The tension was so thick you could cut it with a steak knife, an implement I was once again denied due to my second-class citizenship.
But for a change I wasn’t thinking about food. (Not much, anyway. My scalloped potatoes were to die for.)
I had to tell Emily the truth about Graham and Cookie. But how? I couldn’t very well say, Please pass the salt, and by the way, your cheating bum of a fiancé already has another tootsie waiting in the wings. Somehow I’d have to think of a way to get her alone.
When dinner finally staggered to a close, Emily insisted we see the headlining act in the ship’s Grand Showroom, a magician called The Great Branzini.
“I just love magicians,” she exclaimed. “And this Branzini fellow is supposed to be the toast of Las Vegas.”
As much as I wanted to take a break from my dysfunctional dinner companions, I agreed to go, hoping I’d be able to wrench Emily away from Graham and tell her the truth about her intended. Who, incidentally, looked none too happy at the prospect of my company. The last thing Graham wanted was me hanging around. I knew too much. Way too much. And thanks to my eavesdropping, I was an earwitness to what some folks might consider a proposal of marriage.
Minutes later we were all trooping over to our seats in the Grand Showroom.
Kyle sat at the far end of our group, as far as possible from Graham; Maggie sat next to him, followed by Nesbitt, and then the lovebirds.
“You go first,” Robbie said, waving me ahead when the two of us were left standing in the aisle. Either he was being gallant or he, too, was unwilling to sit next to his aunt’s betrothed.
I plopped down in the hot seat next to Graham, Robbie on my other side. Graham barely acknowledged my existence, too busy whispering sweet nothings to Emily. The rest of us sat in stony silence as we waited for the curtain to go up.
I tried making conversation with Robbie, but he answered in monosyllabic grunts. Throughout dinner, he’d been distracted, looking at his aunt with worry in his eyes. And frankly, I couldn’t blame him. There was trouble in Pritchard City, no doubt about it.
